Dry Bones Activities

This is a description of a series of activities that I held whilst on professional placement in a preschool. I will first describe the context of the activities, what they were and who they were carried out by. I will then rationalise why I think these activities are relevant as a professional portfolio item, demonstrating how I have developed as a professional, as well as an overview of student learning.

Context

After a recent visit from the dentist, the 4 year old kinder children have been interested in emergency workers and the human body. I planned and implemented a series of activities aimed at increasing children's knowledge on the human skeleton. These activities were also repeated the next time the children attended the preschool. See Attachment 1 for the complete lesson plan for these activities.

Activity 1 - Dry Bones StoryI read this story to the children, familiarising them with the different bones in the body. I encouraged them to join in with the reading as the became familiar with the repetition in the story. VEYLDF Outcome 5 - Children are effective communicators: Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes.

Activity 2 - Singing and DancingThe children and I sang 'Heads and Shoulders' and 'Dry Bones' as a follow up to the story. I lead the children, and this was the first time I had sang and danced independently in front of children. The words in the song 'Dry Bones' were similar to those in the story. VEYLDF Outcome 3 - Children have a strong sense of wellbeing: - Children combine gross and fine motor movement and balance to achieve increasingly complex patterns of activity including dance, creative movement and drama.VEYLDF Outcome 5 - Children are effective communicators: Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes.

Activity 3 - Skeleton PaintingAfter reading the story and singing the songs, the children were then required to paint a picture of a skeleton, using white paint on black paper. VEYLDF Outcome 3 - Children have a strong sense of wellbeing: Children manipulate equipment and manage tools with increasing competence and skillVEYLDF Outcome 4 - Children are confident and involved learners: Children transfer knowledge from one setting to another.

Rationale

How the item demonstrates my development as a beginning teacher:

Holding these activities have provided me with a range of learning experiences. These include:

Resources for the preschool topic of skeletons: I now have a story, songs and art activity I can implement when teaching preschool children about the human body.

Knowledge on the human skeleton: I now have a greater knowledge on the bones that are in the human skeleton.

Confidence for holding singing and dancing activities:This was the first time I sang and danced independently in front of children. This experience provided me with confidence to implement activities like this in the future. My self evaluation and reflection of this activity stated: In the past I would have been a little hesitant to carry this activity out on the spot, as I have never sung and danced independently in front of children before. Instead, I saw this as a great opportunity to practise being a confident and flexible teacher. I am quite confident with reading stories to children, and involving them in this process so I wasn’t at all nervous to do this, and the main thing I wanted to improve on was ensuring that I was projecting my voice loud enough for them all to hear, and making sufficient eye contact with them. The children all responded to my questions, comments and gestures which displayed to me that they could sufficiently hear and understand what I was saying. When it came to the singing and dancing, I tried not to worry about getting it wrong and what I looked and sounded like. Instead, I stood up tall and acted confident so that the children had no idea I had never done it before. The children watched and copied my every word and move. They didn’t care how I looked and sounded, and were just happy to be singing and dancing along with me. I had so much fun holding this group time with them, and it made me feel happy and confident for the remainder of the day. I can’t wait to hold another one next time.

Overview of student learning:

These activities provide a range of learning experiences for the children. These include:

Knowledge on the human skeleton: The children brought their previous knowledge on the topic to the activity. I pointed to parts of my body, asking what they were called. Many children knew many names of the bones. One bone the children were not familiar with was the thigh bone, and they had difficulty remembering this for the rest of the lesson. The next time I implemented the activity, some children were able to recall the name of it. I also taught children the word 'phalanges' (fingers) and they were able to remember in the following lesson that the phalanges were fingers. The children were able to include bones they had learnt about from reading the story and singing the song, in their painting.

Fine motor skills: The painting activity provided children with the opportunity to develop their fine motor skills, in particular their pencil grip.

Spatial awareness and gross motor development:The singing and dancing provided children with the opportunity to develop their spatial awareness and gross motor skills.

Communication skills: The group time activities (story reading, singing and dancing) allowed children to develop their listening skills, skills for providing feedback, and both verbal and non verbal skills (singing and dancing).